Yammer is a social networking platform that keeps enterprise communication in mind. Yammer provides a common area for employees to interact in. Since its acquisition by Microsoft in 2012, Yammer has been used by close to 80% of the Fortune 500 companies.
Yammer brings social networking to the workplace. Is that a good thing? It definitely is. It provides a platform where people can get help solving problems through others in the organization that they might not even have met yet. Yammer thus lets you get answers from unexpected people.
The main uses of Yammer are to gather ideas, solve problems, share knowledge, and gather feedback. Additionally, Yammer makes the office a fun place. It allows people to create their own interest groups around shared topics, interests, or areas of practice.

In this chapter, we will learn about the following:

• Joining a Yammer network
• Creating a Yammer group
• Joining a Yammer group
• Using the activity feed
• Following people and topics
• Posting messages
• Tagging colleagues
• Inviting external members to your network

Joining a Yammer network

The Microsoft 365 sign-in options for Yammer let you access Yammer with your Microsoft 365 identity. This means when you visit www.yammer.com or when you choose Yammer from the Microsoft 365 waffle, you will be logged straight into Yammer (with your Microsoft 365 credentials). To join a Yammer network, use the following instructions.

Getting ready

Every Microsoft 365 user can access the organization's Yammer network and join groups of their choice. Users external to the company can only join if they receive an invitation. However, they can only view the external group they have been added to.

How to do it...

To join the Yammer network, follow these steps:

1. Go to www.yammer.com:

2. To join using your organization's account, Click on Log In and provide your Email Address:

3. If your organization has a Microsoft 365 tenant, you will be taken to your organization's sign-in page.
4. Enter your Microsoft 365 credentials.

You are in!

How it works...

When you log in to Yammer, this is how your homepage looks:

1. In the center, we have a discovery feed and conversations. This is where you create and consume content. The content here is gathered from the various groups that you have joined or the people you follow.
2. All the groups that you have subscribed to will appear in the left pane.

3. You can search for groups, posts, and people using the Yammer Search option in the left-hand side pane.
4. At the top-left corner, you can see the home, inbox, and notifications icons.

Inbox

The inbox is for focused messages that have been posted in your team or a post you decided to follow, as shown here:

The notifications just show activity around your group or post (such as new members, likes, and so on):

Underneath the search box , you can see a list of the groups you are part of. You can find more groups in your organization by using the Discover more groups link (number 5 in the preceding Yammer homepage screenshot).

There's more...

Before it was integrated with Microsoft 365, Yammer used to allow users to sign up using their organization's email address and a password of their choice (which was different from their Microsoft 365 password). This credential was termed a "Yammer identity."

If the user has Microsoft 365 identity enforced, they can log in to Yammer using their Microsoft 365 credentials.

If the user doesn't have Microsoft 365 identity enforced, but use their Microsoft 365 linked email address to sign up to Yammer, they are allowed to log in with their Microsoft 365 credentials.

If the user doesn't have Microsoft 365 identity enforced and the email to use to sign up to Yammer doesn't have a Microsoft 365 account associated, they are allowed to log in using their Yammer identity.

See also

• The Joining a Yammer group recipe in this chapter
• The Inviting external members to your network recipe in this chapter

Creating a Yammer group

Groups in Yammer make it easy for you to share ideas with other people within or outside your organization. It is recommended that you use the Discover more groups option to look for an existing group before creating one. If a group exists already and is also"public," you can join the group. If a group doesn't exist, proceed with creating one yourself. When you create a group, you are automatically made the owner of the group.

Getting ready

Anyone can create a Yammer group. When you create a group, you automatically become owner of that group.

How to do it...

To create a Yammer group, do the following:

1. Go to www.Office.com and select Yammer.
2. From the left pane, select Create a group.
3. Choose between the two group types:

4. Provide a group name, add members, and specify the privacy settings—either public or private.
5. Click Create Group.

How it works...

Yammer groups can be created either to collaborate or socialize with internal staff or external vendors or partners. In some organizations, admins can turn off the ability to create external groups.

While creating a group, you can specify its privacy.

Public Access: This option lets anyone within the organization post messages, pictures, videos, and other content to the group.

Private Access: This option only lets members of the group post messages and other content to the group. Additionally, you can uncheck the box that says List in our network's directory and search results. If you uncheck this box, users in your organization can't find the group when they search for it by group name.

See also

• The Joining a Yammer network recipe in this chapter
• The Inviting external members to your network recipe in this chapter

Joining a Yammer group

The idea behind Yammer is that you can subscribe to subjects that you're interested in. You can do so by joining groups of your choice. Although you can see messages posted in all groups, you areonly notified about messages posted in the groups that you have joined. The following steps will explain how you can join a group within your organization.

Getting ready

By default, you can join any group within your organization. However, certain groups may be "private," which limits the membership to a selected set of individuals. To join these groups, you need to send a request to the administrator.

How to do it...

To join a Yammer group, do the following:

1. Log in to the Yammer home page.
2. Use the search bar to look for a group or click Discover more groups:

3. Yammer will suggest some groups that might interest you based on your connections and other groups you might have joined. Alternatively, you can choose to look at all the groups in your organization:

4. To join a specific group, click Join.

How it works...

When you join a group, you will start seeing posts from the members of that group on your Yammer home page.

Yammer is closely connected to Outlook, so you will keep getting notifications when there is any activity within your group. Sometimes, your Outlook inbox can get too busy if you have joined several groups. You can, in that case, customize your preferences to reduce the email clutter. You can update your preferences by clicking on the gear icon in the left-hand side pane and choose Edit Settings:

Click on the NOTIFICATIONS tab. You can personalize your settings by specifying what you want to get notifications for:

See also

• The Joining a Yammer network recipe in this chapter
• The Inviting external members to your network recipe in this chapter

Using the activity feed

The activity feed is the section where all the posts that are relevant to you will appear. This includes posts from your colleagues, any announcements, and content that is trending. Your activity feed is tailored to you depending on the groups and people you follow, as well as the posts you have shown interest in. The following section describes how you can use the activity feed.

Getting ready

All Microsoft 365 users that have joined Yammer network can access the Yammer home page.

How to do it...

To access the activity feed, do the following:

1. Go to www.office.com and click on Yammer:

2. Click on the waffle icon and select Yammer:

3. The activity feed appears on the center of the page. As the following screenshot shows, it is comprised of the following:
   • DISCOVERY: This tab displays the most recent, unread conversations relating to groups that you're connected to, people you work closely with, and the trending content across your company.
   • ALL: This tab displays all activity happening across the groups, including the ones you haven't subscribed to.
   • FOLLOWING: This tab displays the content you have expressed an interest in, posts from people you are following, and the posts you have shown interest in by liking or commenting:

How it works...

Yammer's discovery feed uses AI to curate content just for you. It keeps getting smarter with time and learns from your choices. For example, if you follow a particular user, Alice, Yammer might occasionally show you a post from Alice's colleagues or her manager. It then monitors your reaction to find out whether these posts are of any value to you. If you like these posts or comment on them, it will start showing you other posts from those users in the future. Not just that, you will also notice that the discovery feed changes during the day, even though you haven't taken any action. This is because Yammer's algorithm arranges the feed in order of importance and relevance at that time of the day.

See also

• The Following people and topics recipe in this chapter
• The Posting messages recipe in this chapter
• The Tagging colleagues recipe in this chapter

Following people and topics

Yammer generally displays posts from the groups you have subscribed to. However, you can follow specific people or topics instead of joining a group. For example, you might be interested in what Kim, the marketing manager, has to say; however, you might not want to join Kim's "Marketing" group because there will be posts that the marketing team publishes that are of no interest to you. When you follow someone on Yammer, messages that they post will show up in your feed on your home page under FOLLOWING.

You can also follow specific topics. Topics are created in Yammer with hashtags, such as #hrupdate. In the next section, we'll explain how you can follow people and topics.

Getting ready

You can follow anyone within your company and you can follow any topic that has been hash tagged.

How to do it...

To follow a person, do the following:

1. Hover your cursor over the person's name and click+ Follow:

2. If the person does not appear in your activity feed, you can search for the person (see 1 in the following screenshot) and repeat the preceding step:

3. To follow a topic, search for the topic or click on the hashtag from within a post and then click + Follow (see 2 in the preceding screenshot):

How it works...

By following a person or a topic, you are requesting to be notified about any activity they have been associated with. This is a good way of subscribing to a topic or specific people within the company that you are interested in without joining multiple groups. Companies can use hashtags to create specific topics, such as #shareprice or #employeeofthemonth, in order to keep staff informed about what's going on.

See also

• The Using the activity feedrecipe in this chapter
• The Posting messages recipe in this chapter
• The Tagging colleagues recipe in this chapter

Posting messages

Yammer gives you the opportunity to share your ideas and opinions with the rest of the company. Yammer allows you to post messages, images, and announcements and run polls. If you want, you can associate your message with a topic. You'll learn more about posting messages in the next section.

Getting ready

Anyone in the company can post a message. They can post messages to All Company or any publicly available group.

How to do it...

To post a message, do the following:

1. Go to the Yammer home page.
2. Choose the group you want to post the message to.

3. Type your message in the text box provided on the home page:

4. You can also upload an image or run a poll and post it in a group:

How it works...

The message posted appears on the home page of the group it was posted to. The section in the left-hand side panel of the home page displays the total unread posts in the group. This is how subscribers of the group know that new posts are available to read:

An announcement is a special type of message that only administrators of the group can post. It has the same features as messages, but announcements also send an email notification to all the group members. They also appear at the top of the group feed. Announcements are meant to be used to convey an important message or a key development.

You can share an existing post to other groups by using the Share option. This lets you preserve comments that were posted under the original conversation (shown in the following screenshot):

See also

• The Using the activity feedrecipe in this chapter
• The Following people and topicsrecipe in this chapter
• The Tagging colleaguesrecipe in this chapter

Tagging colleagues

Tagging your co-workers is a good way of drawing their attention. When you tag a colleague, they receive an email notification and a notification in Yammer.

In the next section, I will explain how you can tag your colleagues to stay connected.

How to do it...

To tag someone, do the following:

1. Go to the Yammer home page.
2. Compose a message and mention the person you want to tag by typing @ followed by their name:

3. You can also mention an individual or an entire group in the area highlighted in the following screenshot:

How it works...

Tagging an individual notifies that person through an email. If you tag an entire group, everyone in the group receives an email. You can invite people from outside the group you are posting the message to. This feature is really useful if you need to bring an expert into an existing conversation.

See also

• The Using the activity feedrecipe in this chapter
• The Following people and topics recipe in this chapter
• The Posting messages recipe in this chapter

Inviting external members to your network

Yammer lets you invite external people to a conversation; so, you can get feedback from experts outside the organization as well. This feature is handy for inviting customers, vendors, and suppliers to a conversation.As a security measure, Yammer makes everyone in the group aware that an external member has been added to the conversation. The next section explains how you can invite people from outside your organization to your Yammer network.

Getting ready

You can invite anyone (with a valid email address) to a conversation.

How to do it...

To invite someone, do the following:

1. Go to the Yammer home page.
2. Compose a message and provide the email address of the person from outside your organization that you want to add:

3. Post the message.

How it works...

When an external member is invited to a conversation, they can participate and view all the messages in the thread. If the thread is too long, other members of the group might not realize that someone outside the company is following their conversation. In order to circumvent the issue, Yammer adds a globe symbol, along with a note on all future responses making it clear that the reply will be visible to people outside the network:

The external member receives an email notifying them that they were mentioned in a Yammer post:

If they have a Yammer account, they will receive a notification on their Yammer home page as well:

They can respond back to the message by simply replying to the Yammer email or replying via the Yammer portal.

See also

• The Joining a Yammer network recipe in this chapter
• The Joining a Yammer group recipe in this chapter